The present invention generally relates to emulation of agnostic control of position, course or altitude of land, water, air, or space vehicles, and particularly to the remotely controlled unmanned aerial vehicles and their coordination via a central field-programmable gate array (FPGA).
The claims, description, and drawings of this application may describe one or more of the instant technologies in operational/functional language, for example as a set of operations to be performed by a computer. Such operational/functional description in most instances would be understood by one skilled the art as specifically-configured hardware (e.g., because a general purpose computer in effect becomes a special purpose computer once it is programmed to perform particular functions pursuant to instructions from program software).
Importantly, although the operational/functional descriptions described herein are understandable by the human mind, they are not abstract ideas of the operations/functions divorced from computational implementation of those operations/functions. Rather, the operations/functions represent a specification for the massively complex computational machines or other means. As discussed in detail below, the operational/functional language must be read in its proper technological context, i.e., as concrete specifications for physical implementations.
The logical operations/functions described herein are a distillation of machine specifications or other physical mechanisms specified by the operations/functions such that the otherwise inscrutable machine specifications may be comprehensible to the human mind. The distillation also allows one of skill in the art to adapt the operational/functional description of the technology across many different specific vendors' hardware configurations or platforms, without being limited to specific vendors' hardware configurations or platforms.
Some of the present technical description (e.g., detailed description, drawings, claims, etc.) may be set forth in terms of logical operations/functions. As described in more detail in the following paragraphs, these logical operations/functions are not representations of abstract ideas, but rather representative of static or sequenced specifications of various hardware elements. Differently stated, unless context dictates otherwise, the logical operations/functions will be understood by those of skill in the art to be representative of static or sequenced specifications of various hardware elements. This is true because tools available to one of skill in the art to implement technical disclosures set forth in operational/functional formats—tools in the form of a high-level programming language (e.g., C, java, visual basic, etc.), or tools in the form of Very high speed Hardware Description Language (“VHDL,” which is a language that uses text to describe logic circuits)—are generators of static or sequenced specifications of various hardware configurations. This fact is sometimes obscured by the broad term “software,” but, as shown by the following explanation, those skilled in the art understand that what is termed “software” is shorthand for a massively complex interchaining/specification of ordered-matter elements. The term “ordered-matter elements” may refer to physical components of computation, such as assemblies of electronic logic gates, molecular computing logic constituents, quantum computing mechanisms, etc.
As outlined above, the reason for the use of functional/operational technical descriptions is at least twofold. First, the use of functional/operational technical descriptions allows near-infinitely complex machines and machine operations arising from interchained hardware elements to be described in a manner that the human mind can process (e.g., by mimicking natural language and logical narrative flow). Second, the use of functional/operational technical descriptions assists the person of skill in the art in understanding the described subject matter by providing a description that is more or less independent of any specific vendor's piece(s) of hardware.
An unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), commonly known as a drone and referred to as a Remotely Piloted Aircraft (RPA) by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), is an aircraft without a human pilot aboard. Its flight is controlled either autonomously by onboard computers or by the remote control of a pilot on the ground or in another vehicle. The typical launch and recovery method of an unmanned aircraft is by the function of an automatic system or an external operator on the ground. Historically, UAVs were simple remotely piloted aircraft, but autonomous control is increasingly being employed. A UAV is capable of controlled, sustained level flight and is powered by a jet, reciprocating, or electric engine.
After many years of growth and innovation mainly in military segment, the global UAV industry is now going through a challenging period, with possible increasing of market dynamics towards wider use of UAVs for commercial and civil purposes. Tens of thousands of users have flown radio-controlled aircrafts for many years, in the past. But drones of commercial value are the result of recent advances in microprocessors, GPS, sensors, batteries, motors, lightweight structural materials, and advanced manufacturing techniques.
Different technological applications to control UAVs in different environments are known in the art. U.S. Pat. No. 7,725,257, Method and system for navigation of an unmanned aerial vehicle in an urban environment, by Honeywell International Inc., discloses a method and system for navigation of an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) in an urban environment. The method comprises capturing a first set of Global Positioning System (GPS)-tagged images in an initial fly-over of the urban environment at a first altitude, with each of the GPS-tagged images being related to respective GPS-aided positions.
The captured GPS-tagged images are stitched together into an image mosaic using the GPS-aided positions. A second set of images is captured in a subsequent fly-over of the urban environment at a second altitude that is lower than the first altitude. Image features from the second set of images are matched with image features from the image mosaic during the subsequent fly-over. A current position of the UAV relative to the GPS-aided positions is calculated based on the matched image features from the second set of images and the image mosaic. U.S. Pat. No. 8,378,881, Systems and methods for collision avoidance in unmanned aerial vehicles, by Raytheon Company, discloses systems and methods for collision avoidance in unmanned aerial vehicles. In one embodiment, the invention relates to a method for collision avoidance system for an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), the method including scanning for objects within a preselected range of the UAV using a plurality of phased array radar sensors, receiving scan information from each of the plurality of phased array radar sensors, wherein the scan information includes information indicative of objects detected within the preselected range of the UAV, determining maneuver information including whether to change a flight path of the UAV based on the scan information, and sending the maneuver information to a flight control circuitry of the UAV.
Modular distributed control in the area of unmanned aerial vehicles is known. Article “A Modular Software Infrastructure for Distributed Control of UAVs”, by Allison Ryan, et al. presents a software architecture and UAV hardware platform that have demonstrated single-user control of a fleet of aircraft, distributed task assignment, and vision-based navigation. A modular software infrastructure has been developed to coordinate distributed control, communications, and vision-based control. Along with the onboard control architecture, a set of user interfaces has been developed to allow a single user to efficiently control the fleet of aircraft. Distributed and vision-based control is enabled by powerful onboard computing capability and an aircraft-to-aircraft ad-hoc wireless network. U.S. Pat. No. 8,989,922, Modular drone and methods for use, by Azure Sky Group, LLC., discloses a navigation unit configured to determine the location of the drone and navigate the drone to designated locations; a radio frequency identification (RFID) reader configured to read RFID tag information from RFID tags; and a wireless network transceiver configured to periodically transmit the location of the drone and RFID tag information to an inventory management system. Various exemplary embodiments relate to a method performed by a drone. The method may include: receiving navigation path information; navigating the drone along the navigation path based on satellite location signals; determining current position information based on the satellite location signals; reading RFID tag information from a first RFID tag; and transmitting the RFID tag information and the current position information via a wireless client to a central computing system.
Commercially utilized unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) can efficiently perform surveillance, mapping, monitoring, tracking, videography, logistics operations and other tasks without extended effort or human risk. However, a large number of currently deployed commercial unmanned aerial vehicles demonstrate a fragmentation of different software and hardware platforms and need for increased agnostic autonomy and cooperation.
None of the current technologies and prior art, taken alone or in combination, does not address nor provide a truly integrated solution for developing capabilities for emulating an agnostic control of position, course or altitude of the remotely controlled unmanned aerial vehicles via a central field-programmable gate array (FPGA), that can be installed and configured on any of commercial drones, unifying the vast network of currently deployed commercial unmanned aerial vehicles.
Therefore, there is a long felt and unmet need for a system and method that overcomes the problems associated with the prior art.
As used in the description herein and throughout the claims that follow, the meaning of “a,” “an,” and “the” includes plural reference unless the context clearly dictates otherwise. Also, as used in the description herein, the meaning of “in” includes “in” and “on” unless the context clearly dictates otherwise.
All methods described herein can be performed in any suitable order unless otherwise indicated herein or otherwise clearly contradicted by context. The use of any and all examples, or exemplary language (e.g. “such as”) provided with respect to certain embodiments herein is intended merely to better illuminate the invention and does not pose a limitation on the scope of the invention otherwise claimed. No language in the specification should be construed as indicating any non-claimed element essential to the practice of the invention.
Groupings of alternative elements or embodiments of the invention disclosed herein are not to be construed as limitations. Each group member can be referred to and claimed individually or in any combination with other members of the group or other elements found herein. One or more members of a group can be included in, or deleted from, a group for reasons of convenience and/or patentability. When any such inclusion or deletion occurs, the specification is herein deemed to contain the group as modified thus fulfilling the written description of all Markush groups used in the appended claims.